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I find soaked wood to be far inferior in my experience. The complexity of flavor is far more varied, unsoaked. All woods contain a certain amount of oil. And the smoke point of various oils differs highly, as does the compounds they give off at various temps. I'm just not as experienced yet in matching smokes to flavor profiles as I'd like to be, which was truly the 'meat' of my question. Got a little side tracked with the nut smoking thing, but it made me wonder.
I think I might do an experiment with some frozen butters. It's a fairly cheap form of fat, and fat is a big smoke sponge after all...

given your brine i would go with apple ., we use pecan in competitions and it is good on the order of hickory but not as strong. i think the baconness of hickory would not compliment your brine..
as far a soaking ... i am an soaker.. first is basic physics .. the wood will not really begin to burn [smoke] until the water evapororates and also the soluble compounds will be dissolved instead of bruning and the flavor seams different to me

given your brine i would go with apple ., we use pecan in competitions and it is good on the order of hickory but not as strong. i think the baconness of hickory would not compliment your brine..
as far a soaking ... i am an soaker.. first is basic physics .. the wood will not really begin to burn [smoke] until the water evapororates and also the soluble compounds will be dissolved instead of bruning and the flavor seams different to me

I find I'm able to control the "burn" adequately by controlling the O2 levels via the vents, I can make a 1X1X6 stick of hickory last 30-40 minutes with smoke coming out of every seam. You may be right about the flavor...I would imagine that's quite a subtle difference though (i.e. I'll buy into it after a double-blind tasting ).

Def apple or cherry. I strongly prefer fruit woods. Not a fan of hickory for long smokes, too smoke-flavor forward. Pecan wood and pecan shells are great for smoking as well, but I would not use the meat. It will burn quickly and smell and taste bitter/bad. I like your brine btw and I'd love to know how it turns out! What is your liquid/sugar/salt ratio btw? Just curious.

I combine the weight of the liquid and protein, and set my ratios based off of that figure. 2% salt and 1-2% sugar depending on the flavor profile of the brine. This method works great for me, I've yet to have anything come out too salty, or under seasoned. I typically brine about 40-50 pounds of belly for bacon a week, and switch up the brine with the season. Along with the occasional pastrami, duck breast/confit, pork butt, and ham. Like I said above, I still don't have a have a fully developed palate in terms of different woods and how they play off of various ingredients, though.